September 14th, 2004
Sony's designers are working overtime. One of my favorite form factors of all new cameras, the Cybershot DSC-M1 looks like a phone but packs a great one-two punch of digital camera and camcorder. But its not all good news.

Read on for the pros and cons:

First Impressions Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1

This camera is very thin, but doesn't seem to sacrifice on the viewfinder size. The DSC-M1 looks a little bit like a celphone, especially when its plugged in to its charger:

At first glance it looks a little bit fiddly, but if you have Sony-compatible fingers (I'm not sure I do) you should feel right at home. as far as look and feel, this is probably one of my favorite new designs.

But wait... its not all good news.. With a price tag said to be around $600 this is certainly not a cheap camera, but thats not the main problem.

There is one giant issue with this camera (apart from the fact that it uses memory sticks):

Considering this is no cheap camera, there is only a 3x Optical zoom.

The real problem is the slow lens: at f3.5 to f4.4 you're almost guaranteed to suffer from camera shake under most underlit conditions.

Should this camera be your new toy? I don't think so. There are plenty of other "funky" cameras that deliver better features AND looks.